The Stand (Original Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the phlegm that had been running out of that fellow Campion’s nose the night before.
    Hap was in the garage bay putting a new tailpipe on Tony Leominster’s Scout and Vic Palfrey was sitting on a folding camp chair, watching him and drinking a Dr Pepper when the bell dinged out front.
    Vic squinted. “It’s the State Patrol,” he said. “Looks like your cousin, there. Joe Bob.”
    “Okay.”
    Hap came out from beneath the Scout, wiping his hands on a ball of waste. On his way through the office he sneezed heavily. He hated summer colds. They were the worst.
    Joe Bob, who was almost six and a half feet tall, was standing by the back of his cruiser, filling up. Beyond him, the three pumps Campion had driven over the night before were neatly lined up like dead soldiers.
    “Hey Joe Bob!” Hap said, coming out.
    "‘Hap, you sumbitch,” Joe Bob said, putting the pump handle on automatic and stepping over the hose. “You’re lucky this place is still standin this mornin.”
    “Shit, Stu Redman saw the guy coming and switched off the pumps. There was a load of sparks, though.”
    “Still damn lucky. Listen, Hap, I come over for somethin besides a fill-up.”
    “Yeah?”
    Joe Bob’s eyes went to Vic, who was standing in the station door. “Was that old geezer here last night?”
    “Who? Vic? Yeah, he comes over most every night.”
    “Can he keep his mouth shut?”
    “Sure, I reckon. He’s a good enough old boy.”
    The automatic feed kicked off. Hap squeezed off another twenty cents’ worth, then put the nozzle back on the pump and switched it off. He walked back to Joe Bob.
    “So? What’s the story?”
    “Well, let’s go inside. I guess the old fella ought to hear, too. And if you get a chance, you can phone the rest of them that was here.” They walked across the tarmac and into the office.
    “Mornin to you, Officer,” Vic said.
    Joe Bob nodded.
    “Coffee, Joe Bob?” Hap asked.    .
    “I guess not.” He looked at them heavily. “The thing is, I don’t know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. So when those guys come here, you don’t let them know I tipped you, right?” “What guys, Officer?” Vic asked.
    “Health Department guys,” Joe Bob said.
    Vic said, “Oh Jesus, it was cholera. I knew it was.”
    Hap looked from one to the other. “Joe Bob?”
    “I don’t know nothing,” Joe Bob said, sitting down in one of the plastic Woolco chairs. His bony knees came nearly up to his neck. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his blouse pocket and lit up. “Finnegan, there, the coroner—”
    “That was a smartass,” Hap said fiercely. “You should have seen him struttin in here, Joe Bob, shushin people and all that.”
    “He’s a big turd in a little bowl, all right,” Joe Bob agreed. “Well, he got Dr. James to look at this Campion, and the two of them called in another doctor that I don’t know. Then they got on the phone to Houston. And around three this mornin they come into that little airport outside of Braintree.”
    “Who did?”
    “Pathologists. Three of them. They were in there with the body until about eight o’clock. Then they got on the phone to the Plague Center in Atlanta, and those guys are going to be here this afternoon. But they said in the meantime that the Health Department was to get out here and see all the guys that were in the station last night, and the guys that drove the rescue unit to Braintree. I don’t know, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined.”
    “Jesus,” Hap said, frightened.
    “The Atlanta Plague Center’s federal,” Vic said. “Would they send out a planeload of federal men just for cholera?”
    “Search me,” Joe Bob said. “But I thought you guys had a right to know. From all I heard, you just tried to lend a hand."
    “It’s appreciated, Joe Bob,” Hap said slowly. “What did James and this other doctor say?”
    “Not much. But they looked scared. I never seen doctors look scared like that. I